Dr.
Aafia Siddiqui: An Open Letter From The Peace Thru Justice
Foundation

29 May 2010

By El-Hajj Mauri’ Saalakhan

To: The
Islamic Circle of North America &
Muslim American Society

Re:
Dr. Aafia Siddiqui

Assalaamu Alaikum: May this find you well.

This
comes in regard to your upcoming convention scheduled
for this coming weekend in Hartford, Connecticut,
insha’Allah. The convention theme - Save The
Family: Save Society – is of particular relevance
to the purpose behind this open letter.

Most
of us are familiar with the hadith found in Al-Bukhari
and Muslim (on the authority of Nu’man ibn Bashir):
“You will observe that the believers are like the
parts of the body in relation to each other in matters
of kindness, love and affection. When one part of the
body is afflicted, the entire body feels it; there is
loss of sleep and a fever develops.”

On May
6, 2010, a mobilization was held in New York City,
primarily in defense of a sister whose case represents
one of the most precedent-setting challenges
confronting the Muslim community in recent memory; the
case of Dr. Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani national who
was renditioned and tortured for five years
overseas before being brought to the United States for
a judicial proceeding (almost two years later)
that masqueraded as a constitutionally mandated
criminal trial.

On the
day of the mobilization, in a city with a reported
population of close to a million Muslims, non-Muslim
supporters easily outnumbered the Muslims who were
present at
Foley Square
in support of this long suffering Muslim woman. The
question is why?

Over
the past year I have met Muslims who knew Aafia
personally, who have yet to speak out in her defense;
not because she is unworthy, but because they are
afraid. This communal failure is emblematic of the
challenges that we as a community have failed to
confront on so many other important fronts - and as
the saying goes: silence (in the face of
oppression) is consent.

Today
our community is in desperate need of leaders who are
capable of demonstrating – through their actions
– the true meaning of faith-based courage
and principled determination, if we are to
collectively meet the challenges of our time.

Shortly after Aafia’s oppressive arrival in the United
States, she appeared in a federal courthouse in New
York City for her arraignment. Despite his own
awareness of being targeted by the same government
which targeted Aafia Siddiqui,
Br. Tarek Mehanna (a brother who now sits in pre-trial
detention himself) felt it was his duty to travel from
Massachusetts to New York, to be a
witness to the proceedings that would unfold (and to
give a sister in desperate need, brotherly support).
Tarek would later write a moving piece of commentary
titled: “The Aafia Siddiqui I Saw.”

In the
final paragraph of this thought-provoking missive,
Tarek wrote the following:

I will not close by
mentioning the obligation of helping to free Muslim
prisoners. I will not mention how al-Mu’tasim razed an
entire city to the ground to rescue a
single Muslim woman. I will not go back
to the days of Salah ad-Din or Umar bin Abd al-Aziz,
who rescued prisoners in the tens of thousands. I
cannot be greedy enough to mention these things at
this point because what is even sadder than what is
happening to Aafia Siddiqui is how few the Muslims
were who even bothered to show up to her hearing, in a
city of around a half million Muslims (not counting
the surrounding areas), and that not a
single Muslim organization in the United
States has taken up the sister’s cause or even spoken
a word in her defense…

By the
grace and mercy of ALLAH (SWT), there are today a
number of small, grassroots organizations
that have taken up the cause of Aafia Siddiqui in
America – a committed Muslim woman who has had her
family life cruelly and unjustifiably shattered
(in a manner that threatens the families of us all).
Unfortunately, however, the “Major Muslim
Organizations” – as they are euphemistically known -
have remained silently on the sidelines.

This
humble appeal represents an opportunity for the
Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) and the
Muslim American Society (MAS) to lead
the way in correcting this very unfortunate and
blameworthy oversight. You can do it this weekend by
urging support for Aafia Siddiqui in one or more of
the main sessions of your regional conference in
Hartford, CT. If not now…when?